


The Princess and Monster Game

by Hecate



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2012-12-15
Packaged: 2017-11-21 05:26:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He visits her again and again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Princess and Monster Game

**Author's Note:**

> Don't archive/translate without asking. Not mine, no money made. Based on fictional characters.

There's noise and a monster at night, not under her bed but in her room, a gun in her face and a snarl on his own. "Do you know how to stitch up a wound?" he asks her, and Sara shakes her head, no, but he makes her do it anyway. There's blood on her hands, afterwards, blood on her arms. Slippery on her skin, and it's making her retch.

And he's gone.

She's shaking when she washes off the blood, tries to wash him away. When she finally sleeps, hours later, she dreams him back into her apartment, sees him smirk and watches as blood creeps over his body like a snake hunting its prey.

She doesn't tell Neal about his visit. Or anybody else.

*

She's not in the city when Keller takes Elisabeth, she's hunting a ghost and a painting. She finds the painting, she always does, except this one time when it was Neal taking it, and for a short while the feeling of triumph is enough to forget about the mess her life has become. 

She goes out by herself, drinks expensive wine in a bar where the men wear suits and the women wear high heels. She flirts, she dances, and it's all so very normal and ordinary. Her old life, and she tells herself she wants it back.

When she returns to her city, Elisabeth is already back and Peter isn't talking to Neal. She sees them both briefly in the FBI offices, telling Peter about her latest success. He nods but doesn't smile, fear still in his face, lines turned permanent. Mozzie is gone. The world has changed.

She hopes he's dead.

*

He isn't.

*

There's a new bullet in his shoulder, a bullet Peter fired, and she tells him he deserved it. He shrugs, grimaces. Points the gun at her face. "Your opinion on this matter isn't of any importance What is important is that you remove the bullet. Now." 

He's in pain. She doesn't care. But she's scared and he has a gun. So she takes out the bullet and she sews up the wound and she covers it all with a bandage. He stays almost silent through it all, a bitten-off groan all the satisfaction he gives her.

"Good girl," he says before he leaves. "Well done."

His lips are hard against her own as he suddenly presses in, and she shoves him away before she remembers his weapon, the danger he poses. But he only laughs, grins at her. Gets up and leaves. She spends the rest of the night on her knees, scrubbing away his blood. Throwing up in the bathroom.

This time, she tells Peter.

*

There are FBI agents in front of her apartment building. She doesn't see them, but she knows they're there. Peter promised as much and Peter wants to get his hands on Keller. She trusts in that. It's easy to do.

But Keller doesn't show himself, and there are always new cases and Peter's boss pulls the agents off the case. They're needed elsewhere and there are enough agencies after Keller anyway, his face papered on warrants and databases. She shrugs it off and pretends to be fine. Pretends to feel safe.

There's a new lock on her door. Neal made it. Sometimes, she sleeps through the night. She dreams of him. Behind her eyelids, in the dark, he kisses her again.

*

Keller finds her when she's in Dublin, hunting a rumor, hunting another painting. The one she promised Neal she would find, the one that still eludes her. He finds her at a restaurant, sits down at her table. Orders food and wine for two. Smiles at her and tells her stories about cons he pulled.

She listens. Remembers his tricks for later, for another criminal. Through it all, her hands are scrabbling for her phone, fingers slipping over the keys. He stops her before she can send off a text to Peter, her hands shaking under the table. His grip is hard around her wrist. No one notices.

She puts her phone on the table.

He leans back and goes on talking. When the wine arrives, she drinks too much too fast, drinks even though she knows she shouldn't. She needs to stay alert, needs to get away. But the wine is like silk in her mouth and Keller watches her with hungry eyes, and he took Elisabeth and he kissed her and it's suddenly too much.

She wakes up hours later in her hotel bed, still in the clothes of the night before. There's a note on the bedside table.

 _You look peaceful when you sleep_ , mocking and dangerous. She's still shaking when she flies back home.

*

She doesn't tell Peter this time. He couldn't help her anyway.

*

She helps the FBI with another case, Neal smiling sadly at her whenever their eyes meet. She shrugs it off. They could have been great, she knows that, they even were for a while. But Neal is all gloss and veneer, a lie covered with another one. His feelings are real but they aren't enough, not for a life, not for a relationship that last longer than his smiles.

And she doesn't want to end up like Kate, an obsession that haunted him, a ghost that still follows his steps. She won't die for him and his dreams. She smiles back, briefly, when he looks at her, but she puts no promise in her eyes.

When she leaves, the case solved, she doesn't look back. It's surprisingly easy.

*

There's a text message with information about some art she's been looking for on her phone, and it takes her a while to realize who sent it. It angers her, her hands shaking with the feeling. She knows what he's doing, knows that he uses her to get back at a rival.

She doesn't want to be his tool.

She goes after the art anyway, it's her job and she's good at it. He won't take it away from her, won't make her look in the other direction. The client thanks her with a smile, the dealer goes to prison, the thief gets away.

She wonders if Keller is angry, if she disappointed him. She tries to find satisfaction in that idea. And fails.

*

He's sitting on her couch, a glass of wine in his hand and a smirk on his face. There's no blood, no injury she can see. It unsettles her.

She walks past him without a word, gets herself a glass. Fills it up with the wine standing at his side, drinks the glass down. Fills it up again. He laughs.

"Hard day, honey?" His voice is like gravel against her skin, and she shudders at the words. Refuses to answer, tries to let the silence settle. But she can't, not with him in her apartment, the place no castle for her for months now. Not after that first break-in, the one she couldn't pin on Neal, and everything that followed.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. She hates the tremble in her voice.

He smiles, his eyes roaming over her body. "Just wanted to check on my favorite insurance investigator."

She looks away. "You got several of those in your life?"

He laughs again, clearly amused, and she feels strangely proud of that. Proud, too, about her words, the quick answer. Almost like banter, almost easy, and she knows that she shouldn't give him that, shouldn't give him that part of her. But it's defiance, the only bit of it she can find, and she _needs_ it.

"Not really," he answers. "I already got a pretty good one." He stands up then, is suddenly close, and she stumbles away.

"Don't," she says, shaking. "Don't."

But he steps closer again, too close, his hands wrapped around her elbows. She looks at the ground. Breathes. Thinks him into a random thug, a criminal in an alley at night. Shoves her knee up as hard as she can, jumps away when he buckles with a shout. Runs to the kitchen, to the drawer, whirls around with a knife in her hand.

He's watching her.

"Fierce," he says, back to smirking already. "I like it."

He bows, a wave of his hand, and turns. Leaves. She's still standing in the kitchen, the knife in her hand, half an hour later. She might be scared. She doesn't think so.

She likes the way her heart beats.

*

He sends her a postcard not much later. No message, no address, just the card.

 _Wish you were here..._ in yellow on the image of a beach, white sand and blue sea. A cliché, really, but she pins the card to her fridge anyway.

 _Wish you were here,_ it says, and she repeats the words some mornings, the coffee mug hot in her hand.

*

She goes to a charity ball, all the guests in masks, and she sees Keller in every dance partner. It's scary and beautiful, turns the mundane event into something wild and exhilarating, and she knows that something is wrong with her. Stockholm syndrome, trauma, something close to it. She doesn't care.

Lately, she's just so tired of doing that.

She lets the last dancer fuck her in a seedy motel nearby, makes him keep his mask on. She bites curses into his neck, tells him to go harder, faster. Collects bruises on her skin. Comes with her eyes closed and asks herself where her monster is.

*

She knows how to defend herself, knows how to run. She's not a fighter, but she's clever and confident, and it's always been enough. In New York in some alley, in Rio in a hotel elevator. Her job isn't always dangerous, but it's not always easy, not without complications. She makes enemies. She never minded that much.

But the men she's facing now are different, they aren't after her because of her job, they're after her because she's alone and she's pretty. They don't know she is the kind of pretty that comes with a gun.

It's a familiar weight in her hand, hours spent at firing ranges, and she pulls it without hesitation. They stop moving. She smiles. Cocks the gun in her hand.

Then, a voice behind her. "I wouldn't do that if I was you." Rough and dangerous, and she knows it too well by now.

"Why?" she asks. "Are those your pets?"

Laughter, tinged with the same danger she always hears in his words, fills the space between them. When he speaks again, she can still hear it. "I wasn't talking to you."

When she turns, confused, she sees another man behind her, ready to stalk up on her. She hadn't noticed him. She swallows a curse. Looks at Keller leaning against the wall some feet away, a gun in his hand, looking inexplicably relaxed.

She sees the contrasts then, the differences between the men surrounding her and him. Keller is a knife, sharp and elegant. But these men are fists to the face, broken bones and blood. She knows which she prefers.

"Ready to go, darling?" he asks. She nods. Walks past the last man with her head held high and her back straight. Forces herself to turn her back on her would-be attackers, forces herself to trust in Keller's eyes, his intentions. It's easy. She knows it shouldn't be.

He walks her home.

"Don't worry," he says later, standing in her bedroom. His body is an outline against the window, the lights of the city at night jumping all around him. "I'll stay for the night." She wants to comment on that, wants to offer taunting words, a reminder of who they are. But she doesn't.

She falls asleep.

*

There's a monster in her room in the morning, unshaven and smiling. She gets up and crosses the room to stand in front of it. Looks down. Leans in to kiss its lips.


End file.
